Since 1996 he has been sending his daily newsletter, Johnson’s
Russia List, to thousands of subscribers – foreign policy
experts, diplomats, businessmen, and scholars around the world
who use his materials as their main source of information on
foreign and specifically US – Russia affairs.

This is what David had to say about US media coverage of the
tragic events in Ukraine:

“We have already reached impressive slam dunk levels of
confidence and outrage... Life would be simpler for Johnson’s
Russia List and its readers if one could also follow the example
of the Washington Post editors and provide commentary only from
Anne Applebaum ("Look at what Russia has done"). Of course, what
the Post is doing is little different from most other media. Such
are the wonders of slam dunk journalism. Exposes of absurd
Russian materials don’t absolve one from responsibility for one's
own work.”

Ordinary logic suggests that with scant evidence available so far
about 298 innocent people losing their lives in the MH17
disaster, it is far too early to make any reasonable assessment
about who is truly responsible for this tragedy. Moreover, even
US Intelligence service with their huge multi-billion dollar
budgets cannot do it either. Logic, however, does not bother
Western media unduly; they jump, with amazing alacrity, to
completely unwarranted conclusions, bending facts for all they
are worth in a specious attempt to pin the blame for the atrocity
on Russia, and personally on Vladimir Putin.
Still, even assuming that everything is possible in this man’s
world, wouldn’t it be better for all concerned to await the
findings of independent, reliable investigators before passing
judgment? In the much simpler Lockerby case (there was, after
all, no military conflict on the ground there) it took three
years for the final verdict to be reached. In this last case,
though, everything was decided immediately by pointing the finger
at Russia and “Russia sponsored separatists and
terrorists” when not a single expert or representative had
seen either the wreckage or the bodies of the victims.

Even worse, this media cry – an obvious move in propaganda
warfare – was taken up by many American and European politicos,
which raises serious doubts about their credibility if one takes
into account that the same people have never said a word yet in
protest against the atrocities of indiscriminate shelling of
civilian targets with increasingly lethal weaponry – using
bombers, tanks, heavy artillery including multiple rocket
launchers that destroy whole city blocks with a single salvo.

The numbers of innocent civilians killed and wounded run into
thousands already, while hundreds of thousands of refugees flee
to Russia for safety from areas that become not just dangerous
but simply impossible to live in due to the destruction of
housing and essential infrastructure, like food and water supply,
electricity, medical services, and so on. The situation in many
areas is tantamount to a humanitarian catastrophe – which the
West simply refuses to notice.

We also never hear any Western criticism of the principal
perpetrators of this madness, such as the Polish Foreign Minister
Radek Sikorski and his Swedish colleague Carl Bildt who, with the
full support of the EU and US, came up with the scheme for
breaking up the ties between Russia and Ukraine that had taken
centuries to build. That was the scheme which eventually led to
the coup d’état in Kiev. The downing of the airliner last week
was the culmination of this coup.

Incidentally, it was the same Radek Sikorski who used vulgar and
racial slurs to describe US – Polish relations. For this, his
wife, WP columnist Anne Applebaum blamed – guess who? Without
denying a single word from her husband’s outrageous outburst, she
blamed Putin who ordered this conversation to be recorded and
passed on to the media.

Now, no one is saying that the people of the Donetsk and Lugansk
regions are angels in disguise. War is war, and humanity has not
yet learned to wage war in kid gloves. However, the demands of
the people in these for greater autonomy are not much different
from those of Irish or Basque nationalists. We see, though, that
neither Britain nor Spain are waging full-scale war against such
regions. Instead, they conduct continuous negotiations with them,
seeking a civilized resolution of the conflict.

Meanwhile, Europe’s political leaders are caught in a quandary.
The European public is properly outraged at the murder, in cold
blood, of nearly three hundred people, many of them EU citizens.
However, neither Brussels nor Washington are likely to ever
accept responsibility for the grievous consequences of their
reckless policies in Ukraine.

In the old days it was the Soviet media, led by the Communist
daily “Pravda” that blamed America and the West for every
misfortune or tragic event in the world. Ironically, the Soviet
virus of “slam dunk journalism,” which we all assumed
had died a natural death with the downfall of communism, has been
mysteriously resurrected on the Potomac, on the Hudson and
elsewhere across the Western world.